THE HUMAN COSTS AND GENDERED IMPACT OF SANCTIONS ON NORTH KOREA OCTOBER 2019 The Human Costs and Gendered Impact of Sanctions on North Korea October 2019 Korea Peace Now, a global movement of women mobilizing to end the Korean War, has commissioned the present report to assess the human cost of sanctions on North Korea, and particularly on North Korean women. The broader aim of the Korea Peace Now campaign is to open space for dialogue on building peace in the Koreas, to move away from the constraints of geopolitics and to view the situation from a human centric perspective. The report was compiled and produced by an international and multidisciplinary panel of independent experts, including Henri Féron, Ph.D., Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy; Ewa Eriksson Fortier, former Head of Country Delegation in the DPRK for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (retired); Kevin Gray, Ph.D., Professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex; Suzy Kim, Ph.D., Professor of Korean History at Rutgers University; Marie O’Reilly, Gender, Peace & Security Consultant; Kee B. Park, MD, MPH, Director of the DPRK Program at the Korean American Medical Association and Lecturer at Harvard Medical School; and Joy Yoon, Co-founder of Ignis Community and PYSRC Director of Educational Therapy. The report is a consensus text agreed among the authors and does not necessarily represent each individual author’s comprehensive position. Authors’ affiliations are for identifying purposes only and do not represent the views of those institutions unless specified. On the cover: A woman works at the Kim Jong Suk Pyongyang textile factory in Pyongyang, North Korea, on July 31, 2014. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, File) The Human Costs and Gendered Impact of Sanctions on North Korea Table of Contents Executive Summary .........................................................iv Key findings: .............................................................iv Key recommendations: ...................................................iv I. Introduction .................................................................1 A. Overview ...............................................................1 B. Methodology ...........................................................3 Box: Background .........................................................4 II. Humanitarian Impact ...................................................... 6 A. Humanitarian Needs ................................................... 6 B. Barriers to Progress .................................................... 8 Table: Preventable deaths attributable to delays and funding shortfalls ..........................................12 Box: Case Study: Pyongyang Spine Rehabilitation Center (PYSRC): Pyongyang, DPRK ........................................................13 III. Development Impact .....................................................14 A. Background on North Korea’s Economic Development ................14 Graph: North Korean trade with China ................................... 16 B. Sanctions Under “Maximum Pressure” ................................ 16 Box: Case Study: Shoe Manufacturing Company: Rason, DPRK .......... 19 IV. Gendered Impact .........................................................21 A. Women in North Korea ................................................21 B. The Global Context ...................................................26 Box: Comparative Case Study: Sanctions’ Impact on Women in Iraq ......28 Box: Case Study: Humanitarian Aid Project, Ignis Community: Rason, DPRK .........................................29 V. Conclusion ................................................................31 A. Findings ..............................................................35 B. Recommendations ...................................................37 UN Security Council ..................................................37 UN Member States imposing unilateral sanctions on the DPRK ........38 DPRK ................................................................39 Annex 1: Humanitarian-sensitive items prohibited under sectoral sanctions in Resolution 2397 (2017), as reported by the UN Panel of Experts established pursuant to Resolution 1874 .........................40 iii The Human Costs and Gendered Impact of Sanctions on North Korea Executive Summary North Korea is one of the most sanctioned countries • Sanctions destabilize North Korean society in in the world. While sanctions used to target mostly the ways that have a disproportionate impact on country’s military and elite, they have evolved in recent women, resonating with patterns observed in years into an almost total ban on North Korea-related other sanctioned countries. The resulting economic trade, investments, and financial transactions. Several pressure tends to exacerbate rates of domestic UN agencies have raised alarm at the impact on the violence, sexual violence, and the trafficking and population, with growing calls for humanitarian and prostitution of women. Sanctions also affect North human rights impact assessments. Korean women differentially due to the dual social expectation that they be the primary caretakers of To better assess this issue, the Korea Peace Now! their families and communities, and workers fully campaign commissioned the present report from integrated into the economy. Thus, sanctions doubly an international and multidisciplinary panel of burden women through their adverse humanitarian independent experts, including some with extensive and developmental consequences, especially when humanitarian field experience in North Korea. The they impact their livelihood by targeting industries Human Costs and Gendered Impact of Sanctions on North that have high ratios of female workers. Korea represents the first comprehensive assessment of the adverse consequences of these sanctions, drawing The report concludes by raising concerns that the on often neglected information from UN agencies on sanctions in their current form may not be reconcilable the ground as well as the authors’ combined expertise with international law, especially humanitarian and in public health, law, economics, history, and gender human rights norms. studies. In particular, the report highlights the case of women as one of the vulnerable groups differentially affected by the sanctions. KEY RECOMMENDATIONS: The authors examined the humanitarian, • Resolve the security crisis that led to the current developmental, and gendered impact of sanctions. situation in accordance with international law. • Lift all sanctions that are in violation of international law, in particular of the UN Charter and of applicable KEY FINDINGS: human rights and humanitarian norms. • Sanctions are impeding the ability of the country • Adopt urgently, in interim, all measures available and of international aid organizations to meet the to mitigate and eliminate the adverse consequences urgent and long-standing humanitarian needs of sanctions on the humanitarian and human rights of the most vulnerable parts of the population. situation in North Korea. Although the UN Security Council has repeatedly • Conduct gender-sensitive humanitarian and human stated that the sanctions are not intended to have rights impact assessments of sanctions currently adverse humanitarian consequences, its case-by- in place. case exemptions mechanism is insufficient to prevent this outcome in practice. Life-saving aid • Ensure women’s equal and meaningful participation is being fatally obstructed by delays, red tape, and in peace and security negotiations and processes, overcompliance with financial sanctions. in accordance with UNSC Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security. Take into account • Sanctions are also impeding the economic development gender considerations and the rights of women in of the country. UN and unilateral sanctions have all deliberations concerning sanctions on the DPRK. resulted in the collapse of the country’s trade and engagement with the rest of the world, thereby undermining and reversing the progress that North Korea had made in overcoming the economic crisis and famine of the 1990s. iv The Human Costs and Gendered Impact of Sanctions on North Korea I. Introduction A. OVERVIEW The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) is one There is of the most sanctioned countries in the world. It is subject to a combination increasing of unilateral and United Nations (UN) sanctions that amount to an almost evidence that the total ban on DPRK-related trade, investment, and financial transactions.1 Humanitarian groups working in the country have repeatedly warned of the sanctions regime negative consequences of sanctions on the population, and the UN Panel on the DPRK is of Experts tasked with monitoring the implementation of the UN’s DPRK having adverse sanctions2 has recommended that the UN Secretariat conduct an assessment of their humanitarian impact.3 Likewise, the UN Special Rapporteur on the negative humanitarian impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights has consequences. proposed human rights impact assessments for unilateral sanctions in general.4 However, neither of these recommendations has been implemented and no comprehensive analysis of the problem has been done to date. There is increasing evidence that the sanctions regime on the DPRK is having adverse humanitarian consequences, even as the relevant UN resolutions explicitly state this is not the intention.5